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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 1999)
TUESDAY February 16, 1999 Volume 105 • Issue 93 • 12 Pages College Station, Texas 105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY WDWIRE »• 14 Texas m traveled it nd and came v'er the Univ id Oklahoma li by a scorn ^ies improve in BigUpii <a good or us," :h Tim . '"I\vo sports • A&M freshman guard LaToya Rose looks to play a big part in Aggies 7 future. PAGE 7 today's issue Toons 2 Opinion 11 Wednesday's issue Greek Week events kickoff to benefit charity and promote leadership and unity. aggielife • Today marks the beginning of the year 4697, the Chinese year of the rabbit. PAGE 3 et out confer- vggies ar« t indoors Fi City. After aint, A&M singles ms:: rday in Edmc ed the do: f six singles: Madden ar. playing No the Aggies,! to disposed loran, Keitb iburo all wo: SC names aew president ? still el to BY NONI SRIDHARA The Battalion Bill Anderson, MSC president- ?ct pnd a senior mechanical engi- erihg major, said his main two- rt goal for the future of the MSC is empower the internal parts of the gaipzation and establish its exter- 1 program to help serve more stu nts. Anderson said he got involved th MSC programs as a freshman. He said he wanted to take advan- 5 e of the unique opportunities ailable and put his skills to use. “Tvdidn’t get involved thinking, h, I want to become MSC presi- nt,| Anderson said. “I just wanted meet people and learn more about jpbeato ihk uai iauon /se ] t >• Bill Anderson, a senior mechani- Anderson said as MSC president, ca ' en & neer i n § major, is presi- will oversee a total reconstruction dent-elect for the MSC. the organization. He said he and his staffers are delegating authority and responsi- tities to councils and committees so the executive staff can focus on flg-range strategic issues. Anderson said he wants the executive staff to concentrate on creat- g liaisons within the University. “We want to help improve the student union,” he said, “and there’s way I can do this by myself.” Will Hurd, current MSC president and a senior computer science d international studies major, said the mission of the MSC is to im- )ve the quality of life of the 43,000 students on campus. “Looking back, I feel that we’ve accomplished a lot,” Hurd said, /e brought a lot of new dynamic programs.” Hurd was on the panel that to select Anderson as the new MSC pres- ;nt. He said Anderson will do an effective job because he is focused , the students. 1 “Bill embodies what this organization is about,” Hurd said. “It is a mmunity center which brings people from different backgrounds and Itures together to learn and understand from one another.” Anderson said another change students will see in the upcoming ar,is more openings in student development. He said he sees poten- ’ growth in the MSC. ;“Sometimes I lie awake at night and see these visions in my head d wonder how to make them realities,” he said. MIKE FUENTES/Thk Battalion Senator Phil Gramm speaks Monday morning at the Pavillion. Gramm is urging the Social Security Administration to exempt college student work ers from having to pay Social Security taxes. Sen. Gramm advocates tax breaks for students BY AMANDA STIRPE The Battalion Senator Phil Gramm visited the Texas A&M campus yesterday to pro mote the Student Tax Fairness Act and to participate in a letter-signing cere mony to advocate the act to the Social Security Administration. Donald Engelage, executive direc tor of student financial aid, and Daniel N. Stewart, state Social Secu rity administrator, signed the letter with Gramm. Jill Burness, an eco nomics graduate student, accompa nied the panel to express the student view of the act. The Student Tax Fairness Act ex empts University employed students from relinquishing part of their pay- check to social security. “The tax is an inequity that exist ed in tax laws since 1972,” Gramm said. In 1972, the federal government decided undergraduate and graduate students should be exempt from the tax, benefiting all workers of more than 35 years. Texas is one of three states that did not sign the bill in time and has been allowing students to pay the tax. On the A&M campus 13,225 un dergraduate and graduate students work for the University. see Gramm on Page 2. Speaker addresses effects of bombing BY AMANDA PALM The Battalion Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Kenneth E. Eickmann shared his experience of the Okla homa City Bombing rescue and recovery efforts Monday evening at Rudder Theater. Eickmann completed a 31- year career in the U.S. Air Force and is director of the Construction Industry Insti tute, a national forum for construction research housed at the University of Texas. He was invited to speak by the Association of General Contractors of the Construction Science Depart ment. When the Alfred P. Mur- rah Building in Oklahoma City was bombed on April 19, 1995, the governor of Ok lahoma asked Eickmann, who was commanding gen eral at Tinker Air Force Base, to guide the disaster re sponse. Eickmann said 122 vehi cles and 800 people, includ ing 11 rescue teams, were brought to Oklahoma City to respond to the bombing. He said people from the Air Force base and the local fire departments worked well as a team because many al ready knew each other. “It was a great experience to work with the rescue workers,” Eickmann said. “Coordination is critically important. You have to think of everything that can be done and do it. “We had a plan, we fol lowed it, and it worked.” Rescue dogs were also a SALLIE TURNER/The Battalion Retired Air Force Lieutenant General Kenneth E. Eick mann speaks about the after- math of the Oklahoma City Bombing Monday night. major part of the response ef fort, Eickmann said. The dogs were used to sniff for parts of the bomb and to search for survivors in the debris of the building. Eickmann said after the recovery efforts were fin ished, many of the rescue dogs stayed in Oklahoma City to visit local schools and help aid grieving children. As a result of the bomb ing, 219 children lost a par ent and 30 were orphaned. “We wanted those 249 kids to never have to worry about paying for college, to have free education any where they went,” he said. “The amount we estimated was $9.5 million. We asked and had it in three weeks.” Eickmann said no one can ever train for a situation like the Oklahoma City bombing. “It’s still hard to tell the story,” he said, “but it’s im portant people understand what happened.” niversity looks to hike schooling costs four student fees may increase in Fall 1999pending approval BY SALLIE TURNER The Battalion RFour student fees are scheduled to ncrease for Fall 1999, costing a stu dent taking 14 hours $97.30 more per semester. ■The proposed increases of the Uni versity Authorized Thition (UAT), Li brary Use Fee (LUF), Computer Use Fee and Student Service Fee will go before the Texas A&M Board of Re gents in March for approval. ■William B. Krumm, vice president for finance and controller, said the proposed UAT increase of $4 per se mester credit hour will fund salary in creases for faculty and staff. The UAT increase will generate an additional $4.4 million. ■“We would rather not raise fees, but the University has to move for ward,” he said. “This is one of the el ements we have to balance.” ■The proposed increase will provide the University with the opportunity to award merit salary increases to facul- staff. Krumm said the University is keep ing students in mind as fees increase. ■ “As tuition and fees increase, every effort has been made to increase the level of financial aid to students in each classification,” he said. ■ The LUF has gradually increased over the past three years. In 1996 the j ty and fee was $2, $3 in 1997 and $4 in 1998. The fee would increase to $5 for the 1999 school year, raising the library’s budget to $8.8 million. Charlene Clark, public relations of ficer for the Sterling C. Evans Library, said the fee increase will help the A&M libraries acquire more collec tions including electronic databases and a base of journal subscriptions. “[The LUF] has allowed us to fi nally begin acquiring materials nec essary to support teaching and re search at a level commensurate with our stature as a university,” she said. “It has made us a national leader in the acquisition of electronic databas es and texts.” The Student Service Fee would in crease from $9.97 per semester credit hour to $10.92 per semester credit hour, an increase of 9.5 percent. Corey Rosenbusch, a member of the Student Service Fee advisory board and a sophomore agricultural development major, said the maxi mum increase of the Student Service Fee would be 10 percent per year, un less a student referendum is held. “The fee is divided up between 23 departments who receive funding,” he said. “The different departments make presentations to the advisory board, who then allocates the funds.” see Fees on Page 2. Proposed Student Fee Increases • University Authorized Tuition (UAT) - A fee increase of $4 has been proposed. The increase would be used to increase faculty and staff salaries based on merit. • Library Use Fee (LUF) - The LUF has in creased a dollar each year since 1996. It will increase by another dollar, allowing the library to allot these funds towards acquiring more collections such as electronic databases and journal sub scriptions. • Student Service Fee - The fee is divided by 23 departments. Each department then makes the decisions about how the fund will be spent. The fee could be increased 10 percent per year unless a referendum is held. This year it may be increased by 9.5 percent. • Computer Use Fee - The computer fee may change to a pay-per-copy fee or the per semester credit charge may be increased by $1, raising the fee to $7 per semester credit hour. Study finds women at greater risk for STDs than they believe (U-WIRE) NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Many women are at a greater risk of contracting sexually-transmitted in fections than they believe, according to a recent study. Perceptions of risk based on good impressions of a sexual partner are re lied on more heavily than testing for STDs, said Mary K. Hutchinson, assis tant professor at the College of Nurs ing at Rutgers-Camden. Hutchinson recently conducted a study of 18- to 26-year-old women to determine whether their perception of being at risk of contracting STDs is the same as their actual risk. Even formal education about STDs does not make a big impact on many people’s perception of risk, Hutchin son said. She said the results of the study will not be published until later this month, when they will appear in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing and in the Journal of Family Relations. “I know unsafe sex is bad for me,” Rutgers College senior Rebecca Kept- ner said. “If there was some way that a con dom could magically appear at the ap propriate time, I would be set, but who has the time to think about their risk when they’re all riled up?”. The participants of the study con sisted of a sample of 100 Black women, 100 Latina women and 100 White women. Findings were similar among each group, Hutchinson said. More than half of the women sur veyed said they did not discuss their level of sexual risk with their partners before sex Hutchinson said. She said common reasons for not discussing risk include assumptions that their partners were low-risk indi viduals, they were too uncomfortable or embarrassed to talk about sex or they just didn’t think to ask. The survey also found that condom use within ongoing relationships de clines as the relationships progresses. Women who had more than 30 partners in the past, but who were currently involved in monogamous re lationships, perceived themselves as low risk. “The idea that women thought that discussing sex was too personal was very disturbing,” Hutchinson said. “If you aren’t comfortable talking about sex with someone you are having sex with, you are taking a serious sexual risk. If you can’t trust someone enough to talk about sex, do you real ly want to trust your permanent health to them?” All sexually active people are at risk, she said. Any person who has sex and thinks he or she is not at risk of contracting diseases is making an in accurate assessment, she said. “Going by the kind of person some one is, being selective about who you sleep with, and choosing certain kinds of partners is not a good method of protecting yourself from the perma nent STDs that are out there,” Hutchinson said. Hutchinson said partners should bring up the topic of sex before they have sex, not during sex or foreplay. Risk can be nearly eliminated if sexual partners discuss sex early on and get tested twice before having sex without a condom, she said.